Members of local Catholic churches will have opportunities to taste a variety of cuisine as they fast from meat on Fridays during Lent.
During Lent, the 40 days preceding Easter Sunday (excluding Sundays), Catholics commemorate the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert and enduring temptation by Satan. On Fridays during Lent, Catholics fast from eating meat and many churches will offer meatless meals after parishioners participate in the Stations of the Cross.
A fish fry that parishioners at Our Lady’s Cathedral, 3214 N Lake Ave., look forward to each year will be offered, with Vietnamese fare on another Friday and a seafood dish on a following Friday. The Rev. Rick Stansberry, the church’s pastor, said the house of worship will do things differently this year by hosting Lenten meals every other Friday, instead of each Friday during Lent.
He said the parish’s Vietnamese community will host the first meal featuring Vietnamese cuisine on Feb. 16. The traditional Knights of Columbus fish fry will be on March 1. And Stansberry said another of the Lenten meals will be seafood etoufee from the Rev. Thanh Nguyen, the church’s associate pastor. Stansberry said Nugyen, who is Vietnamese, is from New Orleans and loves to share his Cajun cooking.